I was stuck on a dead-end road, and a man I knew to have a gun was coming towards me. The adrenaline dump was off the charts.
My career as a police officer acquainted me with stressful and frightening situations. I got used to every kind of fear, but more importantly, I learned to control myself during these challenging times.
Improving yourself and achieving your goals is an uncomfortable process. I’m going to show you, through first-hand experience, how you can handle stressful situations so you can rise to the top in whatever endeavor you choose.
. . .
The adrenal dump vs. the gradual trickle.
There are two main kinds of fear response. The first is a sudden shock that produces a colossal adrenal dump which can overwhelm and paralyze you if you don’t know how to handle it.
Going back to my story, My colleague and I attended a call where a woman had been attacked by her boyfriend. On arrival, she told us he had a gun. We decided to take her with us in our car to search the area. If we found him, we wouldn’t approach him because here in the UK, most police don’t have guns. Instead, we would call an armed response unit to make the arrest.
We drove around for some time, and I was reconciled that we wouldn’t find him. As we were wrapping up the search, my colleague drove us to a dead end. As he was turning the car around, the worst happened. The suspect came out of an alley in front of us.
Our control room told us over the radio not to approach, but we had no choice. He was right there and had a gun somewhere on him. I couldn’t just ignore the threat.
As we pulled alongside the suspect, I jumped out and tackled him. I had to be “robust” so he didn’t get a chance to grab his gun. All ended well.
I experienced a huge adrenaline dump the minute the victim said, “That’s him.” I wished I was anywhere but there. How did I get myself into this?
But I’d felt this feeling many times. I knew what to do, and I could override the fear. I used it to motivate me to fight harder.
. . .
The other kind of fear is the slow, energy-sapping drip of adrenaline when you know something stressful is coming. You’re forewarned, but you can’t get the monkey off your back any quicker, and the monkey’s getting fat.
I suffered this when I knew I would be tested for my black belt in Karate. This was 20 years ago, and it wasn’t in some McDojo where I was training by punching the air with a bunch of children and an instructor that only cared about money.
We used to hit each other. The instructor was a nightclub bouncer who modified old techniques for the real world. In other black belt gradings, noses and ribs had been broken, wrists cracked, and at a minimum, you could expect an hour of getting beaten on by fresh opponents while you had no break.
I couldn’t bring the test date forward and refused to bottle out. The week before the test was miserable. It took all my effort to stop thinking about what might go wrong. But even 20 years ago, I had experience with fear as I’d overcome bullying thanks to this martial art, and I’d come too far to quit.
I took the Grading, passed, got my belt, and then went home and laid on the floor for several hours, hurting from head to toe. But nothing could take away my pride.
The lesson here is knowledge and experience are vital. Understand what adrenaline is and pressure test yourself in real scenarios. The best way to do this is with the fear pyramid.
. . .
The fear pyramid.
Draw a pyramid or a ladder. At the bottom, write down something that scares you but that you know you could overcome. Above it, write another fear, this time a harder one.
Continue up the pyramid until your biggest fears are at the top. Now it’s time to confront them systematically.
Let’s say you’re scared of spiders on the first rung. Maybe at first, you look at pictures of spiders. Then you look at one that someone else is holding. Then you hold it. Then you let it crawl on you.
When you’re free of arachnophobia, move on to the next fear.
As you demolish your fears, something magical happens. You gain confidence and grit.
The pyramid is great for beating slow-seeping adrenaline scenarios, but you’ll also get some adrenal dumps. Being punched in the face was one of my early fears, so when I took up Karate and Boxing, I knew I was going to get punched, but the first few times it happened still produced the adrenal dump as I felt like I’d been hit with a sledgehammer.
. . .
What’s the worst that can happen?
This is looking at the worst-case scenario and telling yourself you can handle it.
I used to play the piano, and I played at a few concerts. I found it terrifying. I’m talking legs shaking, toilet-inducing fear. I wasn’t getting paid, and I wondered what on earth I was doing it for.
One concert was in a hall where the audience was all elderly. While looking for courage in the toilets, I asked myself what I feared. What’s the worst that could happen?
The worst was that I made a mistake. Would the old people laugh at me? Attack me? Leave? Would I die? Of course not. The worst case scenario was I made a mistake, finished the music, the old people appreciated the effort, and I went home with things to work on for next time.
Could I handle making a mistake in public? Yes, I could. This simple thought process got me out of the toilet, and I played without errors. I got thunderous applause and went home on top of the world.
In my police story about the armed man, the worst that could happen is that he shoots me, and I die. Could I handle that?
I joined a job that required putting other people’s safety above mine. I confronted bullies. The police are the only thing that stands between the monsters and the weak.
Some police officers have done such brave things that we should all be humbled. Against the backdrop of their heroism, I had to do this. No one forced me to join the job, and I couldn’t live with myself if I were a coward.
Could I handle being shot? Absolutely. I didn’t have time to think it through as deeply as that, but I knew my duty was to take a bullet to save others.
Sometimes you have to take inspiration from the swan. On the surface, you act elegant and in control. Under the water, you’re going like the clappers.
. . .
What separates the brave from the rest of us?
When I was trying to turn my life around after years of bullying, I was angry with myself because I still felt scared. I thought taking Karate and Boxing lessons and weight training three times a week would remove my fear.
I even asked some people in my clubs if they ever felt scared. They said no, which further added to my feeling of weakness.
I later learned they were lying. We all feel fear unless we have certain mental illnesses. Some psychotic absence of fear doesn’t define courage. Instead, courage is doing what is necessary despite how you feel.
The brave feel fear like everyone else, but they know how to override it and get the job done.
You get used to specific fears over time if you experience them often enough. By the end of my career, I felt no fear of going to mass brawls and disturbances. I’d dealt with them for years.
New experiences will always scare you. When you reach the top of the fear pyramid, expecting enlightenment, a whole new pyramid is waiting for you. And another after that.
As long as you’re alive and growing, you’ll experience fear. Use your old experiences where you overcame adversity to fuel you in your new struggles.
You’ve done it before, why can’t you do it again?
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This post was previously published on Publishous.
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The post How to Handle Stressful or Frightening Situations by Understanding Adrenaline appeared first on The Good Men Project.
